Contents

Introduction

Terminology

Resources for Applicants

Submitting Your Application to the Cleveland Metropolitan School District

General Guidance

Public Disclosure

Submitting the Proposal

Amending Application After it has been Submitted

When and Where to Submit Applications

Submitting the Electronic Copies of the Proposal

Community School Application, Contracting, and Approval to Open Timeline

Application for a CMSD Community School

Section I – Applicant Information

Section 2 – Mission Statement

Section 3 – Executive Summary

Section 4 – Student Enrollment Plan and Rationale

Section 5 – Simultaneous Submissions & Submissions to Another Sponsoring Entity

Section 6 – Affiliated Organization Information

Section 7 – School Calendar and Daily/Weekly Schedule

Section 8 – Academic Program

Section 9 – Student Achievement, Organizational and Financial Goals

Section 10 – Use of High Quality Assessments

Section 11 – Curriculum

Section 13 – Special Student Populations

Section 14 – High School Graduation Requirements

Section 15 – Organization Chart & Staffing Plan

Section 16 – School Leadership

Section 17 – Parent & Community Engagement

Section 18 – Trustee Qualifications and Proposed Board of Trustees

Section 19 – Budgets & Budget Narrative

Section 20 – Fiscal Soundness

Section 21 – Insurance

Section 22 – Facilities

Section 23 – Timeline

Appendix

Application Transmittal Cover Sheet

Proposed Community School Trustee Request for Information

Pre-Opening Visit Checklist

Deliverable(s)

Comments

Date Completed

Budget Templates

Introduction

Thank you for your interest in creating a community school sponsored by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.Since Ohio’s community school law passed in 1997 over 342 community schools have opened across Ohio[i]. Cleveland Metropolitan School District is committed to ensuring only the strongest schools open to serve our children.Accordingly, this Community School Application Kit was created to define the information CMSD requires from new community school applicants.Rigorous in its demand for excellent school planning, design and governance, we hope it communicates to prospective school operators the high expectations CMSD sets for new schools in its portfolio.

CMSD sets the following goals and priorities for its community schools:

  • Create high quality options throughout Cleveland.
  • Maintain high standards of teaching and learning, in alignment with the State, Federal and Local expectations, not less than an Ohio report card rating of Continuous Improvement, to which every new school or sponsored school will be held accountable.
  • Engage, as part of the District’s Academic Transformation Plan, to address persistently low-performing schools, new school sites and/or where expertise is needed.
  • Provide a full range of services and supports, thus meeting the needs of all who select the Community School option(i.e. ELL, SWD, etc.). Maintain a representative of the CMSD population (i.e. % of enrollment in categories) to be established at the time the location for the school is identified and/or reflective of the neighborhood the majority population represents.
  • Narrow and/or eliminate an achievement gap.

The Cleveland Metropolitan School District expects the community schools it sponsors to beinnovators while at the same time focusing on results. In fact, CMSD expects that the most important innovation any community school it sponsors will be strong student academic results. Community schools sponsored by CMSD offer teachers, parents and administrators the chance to design a school from the ground up.For this opportunity, CMSD expects the schools it sponsors to be leaders in improving public education for all students in the city.Schools must develop their own academic design, instructional delivery, and staffing structure all focused on ensuring students post high levels of academic success. Community schools are accountable for performance on the OAA assessments and subject to NCLB requirements and consequences.

Community schools are secular, tuition-free public schools that operate as independent not-for-profit organizations.Our state’s community school legislation offers students, families and educators more choices in public education, and allows schools autonomy and flexibility in how they operate in exchange for stricter accountability and higher educational standards. Community Schools are not a part of the CMSD district and are not governed by the CMSD Board of Education.Community schools operate under a three year contract that includes specific goals for academic, financial, and legal and regulatory compliance and success.Community schools must meet, or post substantial progress toward meeting the goals in their community contract or face closure.

Please note that the application phase is the first of many steps in earning the privilege of operating a successful community school. Once the CMSD Board of Education votes to initially approve an application, CMSD will meet with applicants to finalize the community school contract. We anticipate contracts will be signed in mid March 2011. The contract requires the school satisfy a number of pre-opening requirements prior to receiving the green light to commence instruction. The date for completion of all pre-opening requirements is August 1, 2011 for all schools seeking to open their doors to serve Cleveland’s children in the 2011-2012 school year. Failure to satisfy all pre-opening requirements may result in the delay of the opening of the school. The CMSD pre-opening requirements are provided in the appendix of this application kit.

Please note that CMSD sponsored community schools do not receive guaranteed access to facilities. CMSD has established a separate facilities process for organizations interested in accessing space available in existing CMSD facilities. Community school applicants interested in applying for the opportunity to access space in CMSD facilities must submit a separate application to . Application materials are posted on CMSD’s website. Please contact Patrick Graf at CMSD for more information on that process.

Thank you again for your interest in establishing a high quality community school sponsored by CMSD. CMSD is committed to ensuring all new school opportunities granted by the CMSD Board of Education are well designed and supported by individuals with the capacity and the drive to overcome the challenges of preparing students, all students, to succeed academically.

Terminology

The following terms are used throughout the application kit:

Sponsor(or Authorizer). Community schools are created by application to a designated community school sponsor.The Cleveland Metropolitan School District is designated as a community school authorizer under state law.

Governance. Community schools are governed by a not-for-profit governing board of trustees.High performing community schools have governing boards that are composed of individuals with a mixture of backgrounds and expertise relevant to governing a public, not-for-profit educational organization.Such experience and expertise may include educational program, legal compliance, real estate and facilities, financial management and accounting, fundraising and development, community engagement, and parent involvement.

Autonomy.Community schools operate with substantial autonomy and flexibility in comparison to traditional public schools.Community school operators have the opportunity and responsibility to decide the best ways to allocate resources like time, people and money to best meet the needs of their students within the bounds of the community school law and some laws and regulations that apply to other public schools.For example, operators may determine the length and structure of the school day in a way that best fits the educational program; they may structure staffing in a way that best supports teachers and students; and they may structure the budget to ensure that teachers will have the instructional resources they need to be effective.The authority of community school operators to make these types of decisions is premised on the belief that those closest to students are best suited to make critical decisions about meeting their learning needs.

Accountability. Performance-based accountability is a central component of CMSD’s community school policy.CMSD requires that community schools have clear, measurable academic performance standards under which they will operate and be evaluated. In addition, community schools must be financially accountable, provide evidence of public satisfaction and support, and must comply with applicable laws such as health and safety, special education, and all civil rights laws.

The CMSD Board of Education will only approve applications that clearly demonstrate strong capacity for establishing and operating a high quality community school. The Board reserves the right to accept or reject any application that in its sole judgment fails to meet the District's goals and objectives for sponsored schools. In addition, the Board reserves its right to select the best qualified candidates from those candidates submitting applications.

Request for Proposals to Establish a Community Schools sponsored by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.The remainder of this Application Kit is dedicated to the specific steps and requirements that a community school applicant must follow to submit an application to start a new school.All necessary forms, requirements and deadlines related to the application process are within this Application Kit.The Application Kit, however, is not a guide to community school law and other law that governs the operations of public schools.It is the sole responsibility of the applicant to fully understand and address the legal requirements of all relevant law.Applicants must present a coherent and viable school design that both complies with the law and is likely to improve student learning and achievement for the children in Cleveland.

The Cleveland Metropolitan School District looks forward to reviewing your proposal to launch a new, high quality, public community school in Cleveland.

Resources for Applicants

•Ohio Department of Education (ODE) guidance for new school developers

•ODE Operator Provision

•Sponsor caps and authorized territory

•Building Community School Quality resources for setting academic, organizational and financial goals

•Ohio Revised Code section 33 et al.

Submitting Your Application to theCleveland Metropolitan School District

In preparing your application, please keep in mind that your answers to the specific requests carry enormous significance beyond determining whether or not you will be granted the opportunity to organize and operate a community school; they will be used to determine the specific terms of your contract and set the conditions of your school’s operation.It is therefore critical you do not simply provide a response that may sound impressive on paper.All responses should include plans that are reasonable, feasible and achievable as the school will be held accountable for commitments made.

General Guidance

•Where a question or section requires is keyed to a specific statutory provision, the statutory provision appears in brackets.Please note that unless specifically indicated otherwise, all references are to provisions contained Ohio Education Rule and Law.For instance, the notation “(§ 3314.01))” refers to Ohio Revised Code.

•Each application section request in this document is printed in bold typeface.Immediately following each section request in italic typeface is any “guidance” to guide responses to the request.In many cases, it will be impossible to provide an adequate and complete response without careful reference to the guidance as well as the request.

•Each section request is followed by a box that provides the criteria evaluators will use in analyzing your response.

•Ensure that the application is organized, and that all sections are labeled in the manner and order specified in the “Outline of an Application for a Cleveland Metropolitan Community School.”Any changes could result in the proposal responses not being reviewed.

•All section responses and attachments are to be submitted together by 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 30, 2010.

Public Disclosure

  • The Cleveland Metropolitan School District will release to the public a list containing the names of all proposed community schools submitted.Included in this release will be the name of the applicantand public contact information for the proposed school, the contact person, level of proposed enrollment, grades served, management company or community management organization (if any),and partner organization (if any).In addition, the Proposal Summary form you will be asked to complete below will also be released. While the entire proposal is available under thePublic Records Act (Ohio Revised Code 149.43[ii]) all personal and proprietary information will be redacted as permitted by law.

Submitting the Proposal

Four (4) electronic copies of the proposal on separate flash-drives are required: please see the Submitting the Electronic Copy section below.In addition, four (4) paper copies that are exact printouts of the electronic version must also be submitted. The electronic version of the proposal is regarded as the official submission. Any ambiguity and/or discrepancy between the electronic version and the paper copy submission will always be resolved in favor of the electronic copy.

  1. Please print all pages single-sided (text on only one side of each page).
  2. Each page should contain a footer that includes the proposed school name and should be consecutively numbered at the bottom of the page.Page numbers should indicate the Section number or Attachment number along with the page number in each section.For example, Section 1-1 would indicate the first section, first page.Section 7-12 would indicate the twelfth page of the seventh section.Attachment 6 B - 6 would indicate the sixth page of Attachment 6 B, etc.The application should be organized so that all the Sections come first, followed by the Attachments.
  3. Complete paper applications must be included in a three ring binder or spiral bound with tabs separating sections and attachments. Tabs should be labeled.
  4. Each electronic copy of the proposal shall consist of all files containing the narrative organized just as the sections are described in the table below.The table also notes what file type is acceptable for each response, i.e., Microsoft Word®, Microsoft Excel®.
  5. Your proposal will ultimately contain the following:

-The Community School Proposal Transmittal Form which must be the cover or first page.The Transmittal Form should be completed and signed by the applicant who will serve as the contact for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (the “Applicant Contact”).The original signed form must be submitted with the paper copy of the proposal.

-Complete Responses to Each Section request.Please respond to each request on the form and, where appropriate, provide as much clear information as possible to enhance the understanding of the reader of your proposed community school.Each section should start on a new page to separate it from the prior sections.The Cleveland Metropolitan School District requests that you use tabs to separate each section response and attachment. Please label the tabs with the appropriate section or attachment number and/or title.

-Responses to Each Attachment request. Attachments should follow the response to each Section Request and be labeled as identified below.

-All sections identified below.Please remember that even for those responses that are not applicable to your proposal, you must still include a response to that section with a notation that the “This Section is Not Applicable.”

Amending Application After ithas been Submitted

•Do not send unsolicited amendments following submission of your response to the RFP.If you find that you have inadvertently overlooked something or have additional information to submit, please contact Evelyn Holmes at the telephone number below to determine whether the materials are necessary.If so, the District will advise you regarding how and when to submit the material(s).

When and Where to Submit Applications

•All required electronic and paper submissions are due to the Cleveland Metropolitan School Districtno later than 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 30, 2010. Materials should be addressed as follows:

Cleveland Metropolitan School District
Office of New and Innovative Schools

Proposal for a Community School

Attention: Evelyn R. Holmes

1380 East Sixth Street, 500 North
Cleveland, OH 44114
Phone (216) 348-3651

Submitting the Electronic Copies of the Proposal

As noted above, you should submit four (4) electronic versions of your proposal on four (4) separate flash drives set-up as follows:

•Create a folder on the flash drive called [School Name] Community School Proposal.

•Within that folder, save the Community School Proposal Transmittal Form, the main narrative with section titles and formatted as described below. Please be sure that if you are using the track changes feature of Microsoft Word® that all changes have been accepted and track changes has been turned off prior to saving.

•Acceptable electronic formats for the files to be saved are Microsoft Word®, Microsoft Excel® or Adobe Acrobat® as indicated below. Adobe Acrobat® files are only acceptable when scanning documents is absolutely necessary. When scanned files are submitted in Adobe Acrobat® format, they should be OCR’d (Optical Character Recognition) and Optimized to reduce the file size. Files required to be submitted in Microsoft Word® or Microsoft Excel® may not be submitted in any other format. Please include electronic copies of all sections including all related materials.

•Please contact the Cleveland Metropolitan School District at (216) 348-3651with any questions about electronic formatting requirements.

1 / Cleveland Metropolitan School District Community Application Kit
Winter 2010 - 2011
File Type / Required Section Name
Adobe Acrobat® Form / Transmittal Form (See Appendix)
At least one signed, original copy with paper and electronic submissions.
Microsoft Word® / Section 1 – Applicant Information
Microsoft Word® / Section 2 – Mission Statement
Microsoft Word® / Section 3 – Executive Summary
Microsoft Word® / Section 4 – Student Enrollment Plan and Rationale
Microsoft Word® / Section 5– Simultaneous Submission / Submission to Alternate Sponsoring Entity
Microsoft Word®
Attachments as Adobe Acrobat® where necessary / Section 6 – Affiliated Organizations
If the proposed school plans to partner with an organization or hire a management organization to substantially oversee the day to day operations of the school, include that information here.
At the end of the Section responses, in the Attachment section of your application at Attachment 6 A –Organization Supplemental Data,please label this Attachment 6 A Organization Supplemental Data and include it in the Attachments after your responses to all Section requests.This should include additional information (e.g., proof of legal and tax-exempt status, etc.) submitted as an Adobe Acrobat® file.
Attachment 6 B – Affiliated Organization Term Sheet
Label this Attachment 6 B Affiliated Organization Term Sheet and include it in the Attachments that follow your responses to all Section Requests.
Attachment 6 C – Affiliate Organization Contracts
Label this Attachment 6 C Affiliated Organization Contracts and include it in the Attachments that follow your responses to all Section Requests.
Attachment 6 D – Affiliated Organization Selection
(If you do not propose affiliation with a partner or management organization, you do not need to provide the attachments.Simply state the school is not affiliated under Section 6. In this instance, no attachment is necessary).
Microsoft Word® / Section 7 –School Calendar & Weekly Schedule
Microsoft Word® / Section 8 – Academic Program
Following all section narrative responses, include any supplemental materials you choose, such as research or other information asAttachment 8 A.
Microsoft Word® / Section 9 –Student Achievement, Organizational and Financial Goals
Following all section narrative responses, include any supplemental materials such as research or other supplemental information you deem necessary as Attachment 9 A.
File Type / Required Section Name
Microsoft Word® / Section 10– Use of High Quality Assessments
Following all section narrative responses, include any supplemental materials such as research or other supplemental information you deem necessary as Attachment 10 A.
Microsoft Word® / Section 11 – Curriculum
Following all sections of the narrative responses, include the requested curriculum map any supplemental curricular materials as Attachment 11 A.
Microsoft Word® / Section 12 – Professional Development
Microsoft Word® / Section 13 – Special Student Populations
Following all section narrative responses, include any supplemental materials such as research or other supplemental information you deem necessary as Attachment 13 A.
Microsoft Word® / Section 14 – High School Diploma Requirements
Microsoft Word® / Section 15– Organizational Chart & Staffing Plan
Microsoft Word® / Section 16 – School Leadership
Microsoft Word® / Section 17 – Parent & Community Engagement
Following all sections of the narrative responses, include any supplemental materials such as letters of support as Attachment17 A.
Microsoft Word®
or Adobe Acrobat® / Section 18 – Trustee Qualifications & Proposed Board of Trustees
Include the narrative description of each proposed board member as a part of the main application narrative in this section.Include as
Attachment 18 A– Trustee Request for Information Form (provided in the Appendix)
Attachment 18 B –Trustee Affiliation Waiver
Attachment 18 C –ProposedBylaws
Attachment 18 D –501 c(3) documentation
Microsoft Excel® andWord ® / Section 19 –Detailed Budget Narrative, Proposed Budgets, Cash Flow
Microsoft Word® / Section 20 – Fiscal Soundness
Microsoft Word® or Adobe Acrobat® / Section 21 – Insurance
Following all sections the narrative responses, include any supplemental materials such as insurance documents or quotes as Attachment 21 A.
Microsoft Word®
or Adobe Acrobat® / Section 22 – Facilities
Following all sections the narrative responses, include any supplemental materials such as insurance documents or quotes as Attachment 22 A.
Microsoft Word® / Section 23 – Timeline

2010-2011